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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27801994">casket of glass</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/zimtlein/pseuds/zimtlein'>zimtlein</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Miraculous Ladybug</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Character Study, F/M, Headcanon, Memories, Unrequited Love</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 16:00:20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,426</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27801994</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/zimtlein/pseuds/zimtlein</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Nathalie likes to think she is more selfless than that.</p><p>In truth, reflections never lie.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Emilie Agreste &amp; Nathalie Sancoeur, Gabriel Agreste | Papillon | Hawk Moth/Nathalie Sancoeur (one-sided)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>28</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>casket of glass</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It’s Gabriel’s sanctuary. A lonely, quiet place, the past sitting in its middle as an ever-so-present reminder. In the form of a fragile body, a faint smile. Nathalie does what is asked of her. She pulls up weeds, she checks the roses for damaged blossoms. She has a look at the regulator, at the humidity, the temperature. The back-up generator works fine, the lights work well. He didn’t spare any expenses. Then again, no expense could ever mean anything to a man like him. Meaning is found elsewhere.</p><p>It’s found in a casket, in the light rise of a ribcage, the only indicator that not all is lost.</p><p>She does what she was asked to do. They store away their gardening tools in the far back, a little space that doesn’t take away from all the beauty in the front. Racks, garden shears, shovels. Shovels she used, first when Gabriel created this place, building it up according to the image in his head. A visionary in its truest form. A place worthy of art, a place not meant for anyone’s eyes but his.</p><p>And Nathalie’s.</p><p>But it’s only a convenience, and she can’t forget about that much. There’s nothing special to her. Other than the fact that silence began to mean too much to her. When she takes the shovel into her hands, it feels heavy. A burden to be shouldered. She doesn’t know if she ever asked for it, and she knows even less why she never refused. A life without an eventual goal would lose its meaning. Dull, counting day after day; instead, she counts mistake after mistake.</p><p>The shovel weighs heavily in her hands. It’s not the first time a suffocating feeling settles in her chest. It’s not the first time her feet drag her to the beauty sitting behind glass. Blonde hair. Eyes as green as tropical nights. Not a single soul who didn’t adore her. Not a single man who didn’t go to his knees before her. Of course she would choose the most devoted of them all, building up her little kingdom.</p><p>The insatiable hunger in her green, green eyes when she used the Miraculous for the first time.</p><p>Nathalie stands before the casket. Looks at it. Looks down at it. Down at perfect skin and long lashes. Serene beauty. Eyes that pierced through any façade. A voice that soothed, and planted thorns.</p><p>Nathalie’s grip on the shovel tightens.</p><p>It wouldn’t take much. A little bit of strength. A little bit of courage. A little bit of nonchalance. To let metal meet glass, to watch the surface crack and break into thousand pieces. To watch perfection being tainted by tiny endless flaws. To sprinkle purest white with deepest red. It wouldn’t take much to be salvation. It wouldn’t take much to leave a past, never forgotten and yet long buried, behind.</p><p>It wouldn’t be the first time her fingers shake on the shovel’s handle. It wouldn’t be the first time she is stopped by the sound of steps, as firm as they always are.</p><p>His presence is overwhelming. Her breaths are clipped. Side by side, they stare at eternal beauty, the shovel in her hand forgotten.</p><p>“I didn’t find you in your room,” he states.</p><p>Her breaths are quivering. “I know. I apologize.”</p><p>“You are supposed to rest. Not tend to the garden.”</p><p>“I apologize. I’m feeling better already.”</p><p>He turns his head. Blue, blue eyes. Once, they carried a warmth Nathalie could get lost in. Now, the sleeping beauty in front of them has taken it, as she took so many things before.</p><p>“I miss her too,” he tells her.</p><p>She chokes on the truth that wants to slip from her lips. She chokes on the sudden dizziness grabbing her, not letting her go. She sways to the side, trying to hold onto something. With a clattering sound, the shovel falls to the ground, and before she knows it, warm arms have caught her fall.</p><p>She remembers the times when blonde elegance dissipated, leaving a mess of misplaced steps until she was caught by Gabriel’s tender hands as well.</p><p>She remembers the times when beauty melted into stains, leaving a coughing, feverish woman in the arms of a man she vowed to use for the rest of her days.</p><p>It’s like hearing her laughter from the depths of hell as Nathalie holds onto him, fingers searching for purchase. The little jabs, the little smiles, the little words, the many times when she asked, <em>and you think you’re enough? For a man like him, you really think you’re enough?</em></p><p>She was grace, she was softness, she was everything; the cruelest being Nathalie had ever set eyes upon.</p><p>She sinks to the ground, held only by a man that will never be hers. His eyes dart over the brooch beneath her collar, the only thing she will ever have in common with the dying woman he loves. Concern shines in his eyes, chasing away iciness that was never part of him.</p><p>Pain in her chest. In her stomach, in her mind. She needs a second to catch herself. But with his arms around her, she feels secure. Playing a role she would have fit into from the start. Had he let her. But beauty is deceiving, Nathalie knows, and blaming him wouldn’t do her any good.</p><p>So she accepts the pain, the ragged breaths, the pounding heart, the aching limbs, the weak body, the feeling of going under, and under, and under, and she rests in his arms.</p><p>“I will bring you to your room,” he tells her.</p><p>“It’s okay,” she whispers. “I apologize for the inconvenience.”</p><p>“You are never an inconvenience, Nathalie.”</p><p>She could laugh right back at that pretty face from hell itself, could laugh at the irony of it all.</p><p>Gabriel helps her put back the shovel, leaving her leaning against the casket for some endless moments. Without a weapon in her hands, Nathalie can do nothing. A harmless creature left to fate itself. When she looks at the woman’s face, at its utter beauty, all that greets her is her own reflection.</p><p>A tired face. Dark rings underneath puffy eyes. Dry lips. Dark hair, cold eyes.</p><p>Even in sure death, Emilie looked like an angel on earth, and Nathalie? No more than a little bug. A wannabe. A tiny parasite, wiggling its way into a ripe apple until it’s rotten from inside.</p><p>But no matter how close Nathalie leans, her reflection won’t go away. A tired face overlaying the beauty beneath. Emilie never learned what it means to sacrifice herself for something greater, something vaster. It’s the one difference Nathalie can hold onto as she sees her brooch glimmering in the reflection, that little piece of jewelry breaking artificial light.</p><p>“In the end,” Gabriel’s voice sounds, making Nathalie flinch, “you’re the only one who understands, Nathalie. Why I need to do all of this. Why I have no choice.”</p><p>She does. It’s the grip of a woman catching people in her net with easy smiles and soothing words. It’s her sense of superiority packed into a paper made of selfless love. It’s the midnight shadow in her eyes when faced with a kind of power she had always dreamed of.</p><p>Nathalie likes to think she is more selfless than that.</p><p>In truth, reflections never lie.</p><p>“I do,” she therefore says. “It’s for Adrien. For you.”</p><p><em>For all of us</em>, it sticks on her tongue, but some lies bury to deep.</p><p>His touches are more painful than anything the Miraculous could ever cause. The exact same touches he granted  his wife. The exact same worried looks. The exact same soft tone. His hand on her left shoulder, because Emilie was left-handed, and Nathalie isn’t.</p><p>Nathalie isn’t.</p><p>Next time, she promises herself. Next time she will succumb to her memories. Next time she will free Gabriel from the clutches of his past. Next time, she will be the one to save him. She lets herself be tucked into her bed by him. She lets herself shiver when his finger traces a path over her cheek. Only a second before Gabriel draws his hand back so quickly the regret lies in that single movement alone, and he averts his gaze, his whole being from her to leave her alone in the cold bed.</p><p>“Sleep well,” he says. Doesn’t wait for an answer before he shuts the door behind him.</p><p>Next time, she tells herself, she will lose everything to be the selfless one.</p><p>Next time.</p><p>Next time.</p><p>(She never does.)</p>
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